Canalys made the announcement as a precursor to the release of its full figures for Chinese smartphone sales in Q3 2015, so we don’t yet know where Apple, Samsung, or others rank for the three-month period. Crucially, nor do we have sales/marketshare figures. For example, it seems likely that Canalys is comparing sales-in figures for Huawei (i.e. channel and consume sales) with sales-out (direct to consumers) for Xiaomi. A fair match, because that’s how they both do sales, but worth noting all the same.

Xiaomi, for its part, told TechCrunch that the analysis could be down to timing:

“We just released Redmi Note 2 in mid August and Mi 4c in late September, which means our product lineup went through a transition period in Q3 2015, and we had to ramp up supply gradually to meet demand,” a spokesperson said.

Finally, TechCrunch understands that the gap between Xiaomi and Huawei’s figures — according to Canalys’s research — is not huge. So a change in leadership is more a testament to Huawei’s progress than any major crisis at Xiaomi. (Though let’s see if it can hit that sales target for 2015.)